1037 

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ht Reading 
for Children 


What is it? 
Where to find it ? 
How to use it? 


An Address Delivered 
before the 

HINSDALE WOMAN’S CLUB 
by 

Olive Beaupre Miller 




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Olive Beaupre Miller 


Mrs. Miller is known to thousands of 
happy children and grateful parents 
as the author of several volumes of 
children’s verse. 

It is not only this work that has made 
Mrs. Miller an authority on child lit¬ 
erature. She is a Smith College 
graduate, has been a teacher, and, 
most important of all is a mother. 
Endowed with a sympathetic under¬ 
standing of the child viewpoint, a 
lover of books and a literary artist 
herself, Mrs. Miller is unusually well 
qualified to speak upon this vast and 
important subject. 

Her most recent and most important 
service to childhood is the selecting, 
arranging and editing of the contents 
of My BOOK HOUSE—a six volume, 
twenty-five hundred page library of 
all that is best in children’s literature. 











Right Reading 
for Children 

I am never asked to talk on the subject of 
children’s reading that I do not feel I want to 
begin by explaining that I speak not from the 
standpoint of a professor, a librarian, or a liter¬ 
ary critic, but simply as one mother to other 
mothers, with such knowledge of the subject as 
I have gained from a most loving and sympa¬ 
thetic study of the nature of childhood at all the 
various stages of its development and a most earn¬ 
est desire to bring to children all the good that 
is obtainable, holding every other consideration 
of small account beside the serving of the real 
interests of the child himself. And you will for¬ 
give me if I make no effort either to be clever or 
entertaining but speak to you straight from my 
heart of the subject which is so near to my heart. 

Although there has already been a great 
awakening to the importance of what the child 
reads outside the school-room, I feel that such 
reading is still regarded by too many parents as 
merely an amusement, of no very great import¬ 
ance, with no object save to entertain the child. 
It is therefore held to be deserving of no more 
attention or supervision than any other phase of 
his play. My earnest wish today is to free the 
whole subject of reading from the results of this 
superficial view and place it before you in its 
true light, as the very basis of your child’s 
thought, of his views of life, of the moral and 
ethical standards he is forming, the spirit that is 
awakening and quickening in him, the character 
that is unfolding. 

The Influence of 
Imaginative Literature 

What I have to say applies most particularly 
to imaginative literature or fiction. I know the 
world has always taken more or less seriously the 
subject of scientific reading—reading of books on 
history, biography, science, etc. It has recog¬ 
nized the value of adding to the child’s store of 
facts. I do not need to convince you on that 
point and so I am not referring to such books at 
all. Let the child read all of them he will; they 
are good for him. But it has been in the field of 
fiction that mothers and fathers have thought, 
“Oh, it doesn’t matter much what Robert reads 
—It’s only a story anyway!” 

My friends, there are stories and stories and 
nothing matters much more than which story 

* An address before the Hinsdale Woman's Club by Olive Beaupre Miller 






4 


Right Reading for Children 


Robert reads. Robert may know all the scien¬ 
tific facts in the universe, may know the Ency¬ 
clopedia Britannica backwards and forwards, 
and still never have perceived that selfishness, 
dishonesty, cunning, cruelty, weakness, narrow¬ 
ness of vision, inability to see from any other 
standpoint than his own, are evil qualities which 
he does not wish to possess and that courage and 
faith, strength and perseverance, patience, hon¬ 
esty, loyalty, breadth of vision are qualities which 
are splendid and admirable, which he does wish 
to possess. 

In the settling of those great problems which 
have been stirred to the surface in the restless 
world of today and are facing the rising genera¬ 
tion, problems needing greater wisdom and 
breadth of view for their solution than have ever 
faced the world before, is it going to be of more 
importance to Robert to know that the Battle 
of Hastings was fought in the year 1066 or to 
have innately and unconsciously acquired a love 
of justice and truth, an admiration for the big 
and unselfish view-point, the well-balanced and 
far-reaching wisdom ? 

I am not belittling scientific reading; it is 
absolutely necessary and many a finely written 
history or biography may and often does accom¬ 
plish the same thing as fiction, but I am bringing 
out as clearly as possible that the value of the 
best fiction has been much under-rated and that 
because it has been under-rated, the best and 
most intelligent use has not been made of it in the 
child’s development. The best fiction certainly 
will mould your child’s ideals and standards, his 
views of life, his judgments on life, as surely as it 
widens his mental horizon, shows him other 
points of view than his own, quickens his imagi¬ 
nation and his joyous appreciation of beauty, 
livens his sense of humor, deepens his emotions, 
and at every turn fires his spirit into life. 

The Message 
in All Great Fiction 

Thomas Hardy in his great novel, “Two on a 
Tower,” which doubtless many of you recall, 
gives us a striking picture of the little narrow 
scientific mind, unillumined by that broad human 
sympathy which the best fiction awakens. The 
hero is the young astronomer, Swithin St. Cleeve, 
whose mental gaze is completely limited to the 
pursuit of further discoveries concerning the 
stars. He is absolutely unable to enter with any 
sympathetic understanding into the life and 



Right Reading for Children 


5 


thoughts of those about him, and the havoc he 
works in the life of the splendid woman who loves 
him by always taking her literally, never being 
able to see what is not directly under his nose, to 
imagine or dream that she might be thinking or 
feeling something that she does not speak out and 
that is not apparent on the surface, is a striking 
illustration of the point in question. 

If Lady Constance, from the height of self- 
abnegation, bids Swithin leave her because she 
believes his own good demands it, he obediently 
goes, without ever being able to realize that it is 
her own utter but unspoken sacrifice of self, not 
her pretended personal desires which bid hin><go, 
and that his going can mean nothing but sorrow 
and misery for her. 

Always and ever it is only what is literal and 
apparent, to be discovered by the observation of 
the eye as one might discover facts concerning 
the stars, that Swithin St. Cleeve can understand, 
and one is deeply impressed by the perception 
that such a type of thought, though it might con¬ 
tribute a very learned article to the Encyclopedia 
Britannica would be bound to spell tragedy in its 
human relationships, and indeed could never 
contribute to the world the most truly broad and 
useful service. And one wishes, wishes, wishes 
that Swithin St. Cleeve had been steeped in fairy 
tales in his youth. What the world so sorely 
needs is thought, not only persistently seeking 
facts, but also infused and enlivened and en¬ 
lightened by a broad human sympathy and 
understanding. And so we need both the ency¬ 
clopedia and the world of fiction. 


The Value of Fiction 
in Children’s Reading 

Just as the best fiction for us grown-ups—I am 
not, of course, speaking of the mountain of trash 
that calls itself fiction in these days—but of such 
books as ‘‘Two on a Tower” and many another 
of its kind—just as that fiction gives us a truer 
knowledge of human nature, a clearer under¬ 
standing of human motives, a broader, juster, 
more accurate and compassionate judgment of 
men and events, so does fiction do the same thing 
for the smallest child. 

Beginning with its earliest fairy tales, the child 
commences to see in his stories quite without any 
drawing or morals or calling of attention to the 
fact, what qualities are splendid and noble, what 
qualities are base and ignoble and for the very 
reason that the tale does entertain him, does 










6 


Right Reading for Children 


interest him so intensely and move him to the 
very depths of his being, the impression left by 
the story is far more lasting and permanent than 
any sermon that could be preached on the sub¬ 
ject, and constitutes itself an influence upon him 
greater than any other one thing that comes into 
his life, except the ideas and ideals that surround 
him in his own home, which it must never be 
forgotten leave the most telling marks upon his 
character. 

It has been said that fairy tales give many 
children their first clear perception of the dis¬ 
tinction between right and wrong, good and evil, 
and at their best this is certainly true. No child 
can sympathize deeply with the patience and 
gentleness and sweetness of Cinderella and hate 
the selfishness and vanity of the stepsisters with¬ 
out all unconsciously registering a definite and 
lasting impression which forms a permanent 
part of his ideals. And this story is only illus¬ 
trative of hundreds of others of the same type. 

Please understand I am not arguing at all for j 
the moral or moralizing tale—far, far from it, nor j 
for definitely using stories to point morals, and 
so often destroying their art and the very qualities 
by which they charm the fancy and grip the 
heart. I am only saying that by their very sub¬ 
stance and content and spirit the best stories do 
all unconsciously accomplish these results. The 
preachy, moralizing tale usually defeats its own 
purpose. 

The Evil of 
the Preachy Story 

Once as a child I got from a Sunday School 
library a book called “Willie Trying to Be Good ,, 
—I don't know what there was that allured me 
in the title, but anyway I chose it. Willie was a 
most self-righteous, unnatural, goody-goody little 
prig, and I had read no more than two chapters 
concerning Willie when I wanted to creep up 
behind him and pinch him just to see if I could 
startle him out of his owlish primness by means 
of a perfectly natural “Ouch!" 

What was most remarkable about Willie was 1 
that he kept a great book and whenever anyone 
did anything kind for him he straightway ran 
without delay and wrote down all about it in his 
book. Here he had neatly and accurately tabu¬ 
lated Mother, Father, Aunt Betsey and all the 
rest of the family, and then if Aunt Betsey did 
something which tempted him to be angry instead 
of wickedly expressing his anger, he nobly 
restrained himself, went and looked in his great 






Right Reading for Children 


7 


book under the index “B,” found the name of 
Aunt Betsey and read all the good things Aunt 
Betsey had done for him, whereon his anger 
departed and he betook himself to Aunt Betsey 
to deliver unto her a long and sanctimonious 
oration relating how he had been tempted and 
had overcome the temptation. 

As I remember, on finishing the book I threw 
it across the room in such forceful disgust as to 
make a great deal of repairing necessary before it 
went back to the library and the next time I was 
out of doors and thoughts of the saintly Willie 
popped into n y mind, I picked a quarrel with a 
wholly innocent and inoffensive little neighbor 
girl, although I was by nature a peaceable child, 
just to show how different I was from Willie. 

So I am net referring at all to books with a 
moral. I n eidy mean that all truly great litera¬ 
ture worthy of the name has expressed quite 
unself-const ioi.sly men’s natural love and ad¬ 
miration for v hat is truly great and good and 
their natural perception of the ugliness of what 
is evil and Lise and that this point of view so 
inestimably v luable is all unconsciously ab¬ 
sorbed by the child; the very spirit of the work 
communicates itself to his spirit, if the selections 
made for his reading are wise. 

The Danger of 
l rsound Literature 

Though “Willie Trying To Be Good” errs on 
the moralizing side, there are other stories sanc¬ 
tioned by the literary world because they have 
great literary beauty, which err as much on the 
other side, books which, in spite of their literary 
quality, are n orally unsound and should be 
tabooed. Such a story is “Puss in Boots.” 

The youth in “Puss in Boots” as you know is 
a lazy good-for-nothing who wants a fortune in 
the world without working for it; and his cat, 
who is the hero of the tale, by a succession of 
lies, cunning clever lies, gains for his lazy good- 
for-nothing master an enormously splendid castle, 
a princess for his wife and succession to the King¬ 
dom. The master is thus left revelling in material 
riches which he has done nothing to earn, and 
which have been acquired by clever dishonesty; 
and the child is left with the unconscious impres¬ 
sion that the great aim in life is to be rich, and it 
doesn’t make any difference how you attain that 
purpose, how clever and cunning and sly you 
may have been, so long as you get away with it 
and attain your object. 






8 


Right Reading for Children 


Does the world need any further encourage¬ 
ment to hang onto such a distorted view? It 
certainly does not. And such stories, though of 
very great age and literary standing, should be 
allowed by intelligent mothers to die a natural 
death out of childhood literature. It is not that 
the influence of such a book is direct; it is not 
that if your child reads it he may go out tomorrow 
and commit some dishonest act: the influence is 
far more subtle and indirect. It is this—as he 
reads a succession of such stories, gradually the 
sharp clear cut edge is rubbed ofF his ideals and 
he begins to think that honesty is not such an 
important matter as he had imagined after all. 
So let the heroes and heroines of the fairy tales 
which you choose for your child solicit his deep 
sympathy and interest for the nobler qualities, 
for patience and perseverance, loyalty, truth, 
courage, justice and all the rest, and he will live 
those qualities with his heroes. 


The Choice 
of Fairy Tales 

Fairy tales, welling up from the simple, natural, 
untrained hearts of the common people, have 
been called the wild-garden of literature and they 
could not be more beautifully described. They 
are the wild-rose in the hedgerows, the lily of the 
valley, the wind-flower, the meadow sweet in 
contrast to the cultivated rose or gorgeous poppy 
that grows in the ordered gardens, beside the 
classic fountains of Literature’s stately palaces. 

But let us remember that in wild gardens there 
are weeds as well as beautiful blossoms and so 
for our children we need to weed out the weird 
and sensational, the unwholesome and morbid, 
and leave the pure and beautiful fancies, the 
vigorous flourishing strength, the splendid unself¬ 
conscious simplicity. There are many, many bad 
fairy tales and no one phase of your child’s read¬ 
ing needs more careful supervision than his fairy 
tales. The sad fact is, too, that few editors have 
given you wholly satisfactory books on this sub¬ 
ject, their judgment having been too frequently 
led astray by the literary beauty or charm of 
certain undesirable tales. 

I should never give a young child a whole vol¬ 
ume of Grimm or Dasent or Asbjornsen, Jacobs 
or any other literary collection of folk tales. 
They contain many horrible stories. If the child 
is to have these books whole at any time, let it 
be when he is older, say in the fifth or sixth 





Right Reading for Children 


9 


grades, can read them without fear and has some 
ability within himself to refuse and throw off the 
evil that is there. 

Remember a very young child refuses nothing— 
he soaks up every idea and impression—it is only 
as we grow older and our standards of life begin 
to assume some definite shape within us that we 
sort out impressions that come to us, take the 
good and reject the bad. Choose rather a book 
of fairy tales carefully edited by someone who 
has truly understood children and their need, 
Kate Douglas Wiggin, Frances J. Olcott, Gudrun 
Thorne-Thomsen, etc., or a collection in some 
book of stories to tell children by Carolyn Sher- 
win Bailey, Sarah Cone Bryant or some worth¬ 
while story teller. I do not find even these books 
always satisfactory, but they are by far the best 
selections that can be made today. Let your 
fairy tales be as fanciful as you like—the child 
needs his flights of fancy, nothing great in the 
world was ever accomplished without imagina¬ 
tion, and let these be the old classics, but let 
them be also wholesome, sound and true. 

A Plea for Truth 
in Realistic Fiction 

Now let us turn from fairy tales to realistic 
fiction, stories of events that might really have 
happened in actual life. We have seen that the 
most imaginative and fanciful fairy tale may be 
true, not true to material fact, but true to right 
ideas and ideals, and now when we come to 
realistic stories let us demand further that these 
stories be actually true to human experience. 
Let us ask that the characters be not abnormally 
good or bad, that the happening be not impos¬ 
sible, but that they deal with real live boys and 
girls. I do not mean boys and girls glorying in 
mischief and many of the tricks thought neces¬ 
sary to make a child’s book interesting. I mean 
worthwhile boys and girls, men or women, but 
not impossible or exaggerated ones. 

And here you have whole hosts of books to 
avoid. I am sure I do not need to caution you 
against the sensational, racy, hair-raising ones, 
but I do want to advise you against the senti¬ 
mental wishy-washy ones, the evil of which is 
less apparent. These books give children no ade¬ 
quate view of human experience and its problems 
as they are really going to find them, but sub¬ 
stitute weakness for strength, and delude them 
into the belief that life’s victories may be cheaply 
and easily won, thus giving them no preparation 





10 


Right Reading for Children 


whatever for the real, steady, persistent effort 
that success in life will demand of every man. 
Such books are trash—only littering up children’s 
mental store-houses, and some day or other will 
have to be all pitched out again. 

Books in series are almost always of this type. 
In my childhood Horatio Alger was the chief 
representative of the series type—Sink or Swim, 
Live or Die, Survive or Perish—There was always 
a rich boy who was hideously villainous and a 
poor boy with a halo of righteousness about his 
head, and the poor boy always suffered the most 
dreadful outrages at the hands of the rich boy, 
but in the end the poor boy always grew n arvel- 
ously rich and the villainous rich boy lost all his 
money and becan e marvelously poor, which gave 
the saintly poor boy an opportunity to be most 
superhumanly n agnanin ous, forgive the rich 
boy and restore bin to his own again. When 
you’ve read one of those books you’ve read all. 
Reading them gets to be a habit—one becomes a 
regular serial drunkard and imbibes at least one 
a day. Don’t let your child get that ha it. 


Ins «t Upon 
Real Literature 

Now just one word n ore. Be sure that a book 
is carefully written T ou may think this matter 
is not particularly important beyond its effect 
on your child’s use of the English language, but 
it is. Often the subtlest, most indirect influences 
are the greatest. The very order of a well- 
written book influences a child its vigor and 
beauty, its unity, while a sloppily written story 
tends to induce disordered sloppy thinking. If 
your child wants to read a book and his teacher 
has no reason for telling him that she objects to 
it save that it is poorly written, let that be 
enough. 

Occasionally a book of fine contents, poorly 
written, is worh while, and I admit I would far 
rather my child would read a badly written book 
the substance of which was good than a literary 
classic, the substance of which was evil, yet our 
aim should always be well-written books. Help 
your child to select such books, do all you can to 
urge him to read them and to avoid the cheap 
and trashy stories. Talk to your boy or girl about 
the books he reads when he gets beyond the age 
of your reading to him. Get interested in his 
books yourself, keep his confidence on this point, 
and you will find you are actually discussing with 
him the most vital problems of life. 





Right Reading for Children 11 

For a Healthy 
Mental Digestion 

Remember whenever you see your boy or girl 
with a book that the quality of that book is at 
\ least as important as the food you serve him. 
Would you give him impure food? No! Would 
you give him sloppily prepared food? No! 
Would you clutter up his digestion with all sorts 
of useless pastries and cakes and candies? No! 
Would you give him wholesome, nourishing, well- 
cooked, well-balanced food? Yes! Then do the 
same for his mind. The books he reads are his 
mental food. He swallows the ideas that form 
the substance of those books as surely as he 
swallows meat and potato. If his digestion is 
good, he eliminates the evil and absorbs into his 
mental system the good. Those ideas which he 
absorbs circulate through his mind no less cer¬ 
tainly than blood through his body and he gives 
them out again as mental energy in the form of 
the motives that prompt his every act. How 
important it is then that the ideas fed him should 
be pure and his mental digestion be kept healthy. 

What is a sound body without a sound mind 
to govern it? Germany gave us an example of 
the havoc that can be wrought by sound physical 
bodies without right ideals and standards to move 
them. We want no more of that for the welfare 
of the world. The future is going to make great 
demands on our children. Let us do all in our 
power to have them prepared to meet those 
demands and let us by no means neglect the 
proper use of so powerful an agency for good in 
their development as the world of books. 

My BOOK HOUSE 
A Library of Selected Literature 
for Children 

After closing this general discussion on the 
subject of children’s reading, in which I have 
aimed to give you some few principles for judg¬ 
ment and selection, I have been asked to say 
a few words about My BOOK HOUSE, the 
collection of stories and poems for children on 
which I have spent the past three years and which 
I undertook through discovering for my own 
child the great and universal need of such a work. 
In these books I have endeavored to collect the 
best stories and poems for children from the 
literature of all ages and all peoples and to em¬ 
body in them the principles of selections which 






12 


Right Reading for Children 


I have just been describing to you. They are 
books designed to develop true culture and build 
character. 


The Three Tests 

First I have always asked myself, “Has this 
story literary merit?” If it has not, there is no 
need of going any further. If it has, I have then 
asked secondly, “Will it interest the child?” If 
it will not interest him, what difference does it 
make how great its literary merit may be. If it 
has literary merit and will interest him, my third 
question has been, “Will what it adds to his life 
be for his good ? Is its underlying idea true, does 
it present sound standards, is its spirit fine, its 
atmosphere healthful?” Many a good story has 
failed to pass this last test, but so far as my j 
judgment and understanding goes, I have always 
applied it rigidly. 

A story having then passed all three of these 
tests I have next asked myself, “What is the best 
age at which to present this tale to the child, the 
age at which he will get the most out of it?” 
And so I have tried to grade the stories as intel¬ 
ligently as possible according to age. 

Remember, we can never be too old to appre¬ 
ciate a piece of good literature. Many a dear old 
grandmother writes us apologetically that she 
enjoys the first book, “In the Nursery,” as much 
as her smallest grandchildren, and I always feel 
like writing back, Oh, you dear grandmother, of 
course you enjoy Mothergoose and all those 
delicious, simple, joyous, nonsensical old tales, 
for the spirit of childhood is eternal in the human 
heart, “Except ye become as little children ye 
shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” 
One or one hundred, what is the difference—The 
Kingdom of Heaven certainly consists in having 
the heart of a child! One can never be too old 
for good literature, but one may be too young. 


Properly Graded Stories 

The proper grading of stories from this stand¬ 
point is one of the most important questions to 
be considered in this discussion of children’s read¬ 
ing. A story that will make a most sound and 
healthful impression on a child of eight may be 
absolutely unhealthful at three or five. Very, 
very seldom has a good collection of stories been 
produced for children from the age of two to five— 
and this because few people except mothers really 
understand the little tot at this period, and most 
mothers of children that age have something else 







Right Reading for Children 13 


to do beside write or edit stories. The child then 
is as different as possible from what he is when 
he begins to go to school or kindergarten. He is 
a little bundle of laughter and giggles and sun¬ 
shine and yet he is the most solemn creature on 
earth. His sense of humor is almost nil, or at 
least what is funny to him is not what is funny to 
grown-ups. He takes life tremendously seriously. 
He has no philosophy yet with which to over¬ 
come any little sorrow, and he knows almost 
nothing of the great problem of evil with which 
he will one day be called to cope. 

We have recently had a little nephew visiting 
us, a sturdy, boyish little fellow, about two and a 
half years old, a thorough rowdy, not the kind 
one would ever accuse of being abnormally sensi¬ 
tive. As he sat on his mother’s lap she often 
read to him: 

“Three little kittens 
They lost their mittens 
And they began to cry; 

‘O mammy dear, 

We sadly fear 

That we have lost our mittens!’ 

‘What! lost your mittens, 

You careless kittens, 

Then you shall have no pie,’ 

‘Mee-aw, mee-aw, mee-ow!’ 

‘No, you shall have no pie!’ 

‘Mee-aw, mee-aw, mee-ow!’ ” 

To watch that child’s face as his mother read 
was a study. He followed the fate of those kittens 
with a breathless intensity and troubled concern 
worthy at least of Eliza crossing the ice with a 
pack of bloodhounds at her heels, and the relief, 
the radiant smiles that blossomed forth on his 
little face when those kittens found their mittens 
and got their pie was illuminating, all indicating 
quite clearly that much deeper tragedy than that 
which befell those three little kittens would be 
quite beyond his present powers of endurance. 
What a child will laugh at most heartily and see 
the humor of at six or seven is deadly earnest to 
him at three. 


The Problems of Childhood 

A cousin of mine has many times tried to read 
to her small daughter aged three the story of the 
Little Engine, which is ordinarily such a favorite. 
The little Train of Cars was going over the moun¬ 
tain, loaded with Christmas toys when her engine 
broke down. As she stood there waiting and 
hoping for help, along came a great strong engine, 






14 


Right Reading for Children 


all finely cleaned up and black with his number¬ 
plate scoured and shining. He had just finished 
his work of pulling a fine long passenger train, 
with sleeping cars, parlor cars and dining car, ! 
and he was on his way back to the roundhouse 
now, puffing and blowing with pride. 

“O, Big, Big Engine,” cried the Train, and 
every one of her cars joined in the chorus, “Will 
you please take us over the mountain? Our 
engine has broken down and we’re loaded with 
Christmas toys for the children on the other 
side. Will you help us, help us, help us, help us?” 
But the Big Passenger Engine puffed and snorted 
and blew off steam angrily. “It’s not my business 
to pull such a little nobody as you!” he roared, i 
“I pull much finer trains than you. Puff. Puff! 
Ding Dong! Wheu-eu-eu!” And he switched 
himself round on a sidetrack, passed the poor 
little Train of Cars and soon left her helpless 
far behind! 

At this point there are always howls and wails 
from Martha. “Oh, oh, the poor little train of 
cars! Oh, oh!” In vain her mother has tried to 
assure her the little train does find help at last. 
Martha’s grief at this point has always been so 
intent she has never got beyond this tragic point 
in the story. 

Now the understanding of such a state of 
thought, the sympathetic grasp of a very little 
child’s viewpoint, seldom comes to anyone but a 
mother, and even with us mothers that under¬ 
standing is the most evanescent thing in the world. 
As our own children grow older, acquire some 
sense of humor and some philosophy, we our¬ 
selves forget what those children thought and 
felt at two. But it has been my steady aim 
never to forget it or belittle it, to take it rather 
into intelligent consideration, and uncompromis¬ 
ingly demand that stories for the little one at this 
period be full of joy and sunshine and his own 
beautiful simplicity. 

When the Child is Young 

He needs as yet to have very little to do with 
the problems of evil. That and its overcoming 
which lend strength to books for older children 
can and must be presented to him gradually. He 
should never even hear the word “Death” until 
you feel he is ready to accept such explanation of 
death as your own understanding on that point 
prompts you to give him. Don’t permit him the 
awful fear and sense of terrible mystery on that 
point which comes to many a child hearing of death 
before he is old enough to have it explained to 









Right Reading for Children 


15 


, him. The simplest way is not to talk of it or 
read of it at all at this very immature age, and 
make it a general rule never at this age or any 
other to give a child a book which you think will 
leave him with a sense of fear. Fear never over¬ 
came anything. It always makes man an abject 
i slave. 

In the Nursery 

The first book of My BOOK HOUSE, “In 
the Nursery.” has been very carefully worked 
out to eet just this need—of simplicity, joy 
and sunshine, and is perhaps as remarkable for 
what it excludes as for what it includes. Its 
keynote is struck in the little poem at the be¬ 
ginning Sunshine in the Nursery, 

Sunshine everywhere— 

Floods of pure and golden light, 

Not a shadow there. 

This volume is made up of a most careful 
selection of nursery rhymes, leading on gradually 
to the very simplest rhythmic stories, demanding 
at each step a little more attention and concen¬ 
tration, a little more and a little more, till the 
child is led on naturally to listen to the more 
complicated stories. It has almost no fairy tales. 
The child is as yet so young that the supernatural 
element confuses him. He is just learning the 
real world about him, and does not know where 
to place fairies and elves. I once met a little girl 
of three to whom a volume of Grimm was being 
read. She was a delicate, peevish, overwrought, 
little creature and had fairies and angels and 
Santa Claus and God all in a hopeless muddle. 
So the stories and poems in “In the Nursery” 
deal with the actual world to which the child is 
just awakening, and are crammed full of the 
beauty and joy of earth and sky, of wind and 
sun, of bird and bee and flower. 

On Through 
My BOOK HOUSE 

The second volume, “Up One Pair of Stairs,” is 
also well defined by the poem at the beginning: 

I went up one Pair of Stairs, 

Just like me, 

I looked out the window, 

Just like me, 

And there I saw a bigger world 
Than in the Nursery. 

Its object is to expand the child’s thought, 
give him stories of child life in other countries— 









16 


Right Reading for Children 


Russia, Switzerland, the Arctic, and introduce 
him to the simpler fairy tales. 

The third volume “Through Fairy Halls” is 
distinctively the book of fairy tales, gathered 
from the folk lore of almost every nation in the 
world, and all quaintly illustrated in the cos¬ 
tumes of the country. But though this book is 
chiefly fairy tales, it is well balanced, as are all 
the volumes, with good realistic and humorous 
stories. 

Volume IV. “The Treasure Chest” is the 
book of adventure, progressing from the more 
adventurous fairy tales to realistic adventure, 
such as the story of Alexander Selkirk, whose 
life alone on the little island of Juan Fernandez 
was Defoe’s model for Robinson Crusoe. 

Volume V. “From the Tower Window” is 
the book of romantic adventure, containing, 
among other things, the stories of Robin Hood, 
King Arthur, Roland, Sigurd, Beowulf, and all the 
great national epics. 

The last volume, “The Latch-Key,” is the key 
to the entire set, giving indices, interesting biog¬ 
raphies, and many helpful facts concerning the 
stories. 

Books that Children 
Love and Need 

All the material we have used throughout the 
set we have invariably aimed to present from the 
child’s standpoint, so he would love the books. 
Indeed, experience proves he does love them. 
In this, our collection is different from so many 
others that have the air of a text book and affect 
the child with the same sense of compulsion as 
school books, instead of inviting and really allur¬ 
ing him to lose himself in the interest of them. 
From this standpoint, we have made much of 
the matter of illustrations and cover, by which 
the books first catch his attention and charm him 
through the eye. We have chosen the best illus¬ 
trators in the country for our purpose, and instead 
of letting any one do all the work, have always 
selected the one particularly suited to the special 
subject of each story. 

To sum everything up, we have simply tried 
as intelligently and lovingly as possible to give 
the children the very best literature obtainable, 
to gather it from as wide a source as possible, 
covering many ages and many peoples, that his 
thought might sweep out broadly, to grade it as 
intelligently as we could, and to put it forth in 
such form that it would be irresistible. 


























































































































































































































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